History in Seattle(Dedicated to Jim Page)

History is wandering the streets of Seattle
diagnosed
with Multiple Personality Disorder.

She wears a gray silk suit.
She created personal computers.
She launched the Information Age.
She invented dot coms.
She is a geek

and she has the espresso machine to prove it.

She carries her people's history
in a basket she wove herself.
She tanned her leather dress soft white
with her own hands.
Her hair blows in the wind.
She is beautiful

and invisible.

She wears Birkenstocks
and a down vest.
She won the vote for women here in 1910.
She led the general strike in 1919.
She was called the Soviet of Washington in 1940.
She goes to liberal caucuses
where she is put on a pedestal
and pointed to
by people who can quote Noam Chomsky

and do,

who use the word "process"

a lot.

She came here with her husband and children
at the dawn of history
in 1851
and has been holding the primordial nuclear family together

with her own two hands

ever since.

She has always been the third party.
She has always worn rags
and worked hungry.
She has always been invisible.

She has never stopped shouting.

No amount of counseling has helped History reintegrate.
She refuses to take her meds.
She has been involuntarily committed numerous times